Just breathe

Sounds too simple right. It is. Energy follows attention - attention to your breathe changes how you feel. That’s it. Keep it simple.

Morning Meditation Breath

How you start your day can determine your day. This three-minute meditation is for you to start your day right. Good to use before your mind runs away with you. Keep the restorative energy you’ve created overnight and use it as a soft background for your day. I was going to call this Morning Breathe - ha!

Returning home not an arduous journey

A ‘journey’ is forward facing; has forward momentum that involves going somewhere new. A journey means you start from one place and you move on to somewhere else. A journey infers a linear path where change happens from experiencing something new.

I don’t use the word journey much anymore. The word has always made me cringe slightly. Only certain people have the time and resources to go on journeys (at least that’s what I’ve told myself). It feels like an aspiration - kind of generic - and not one grounded in reality. Let’s all go on a beautiful journey together…mmm.

Over 25 houses, four different careers, many relationships, weight up and down like a yoyo - change is what I did when I was triggered. But at the same time I also had the sense that what I really needed to do is stay put, calm down and face what was already there.

My inspiration for this blog is a wonderful talk and practice: ‘Quantum Breath Meditation’ by Amrit Desai from The Amrit Yoga Institute. I did my yoga nidra teacher training with his wonderful daughter Kamini Desai. Amrit Desai talks about returning home to your self instead of going on a journey.

A journey takes you away from where you are.

And accepting where you are right now is so very important, even if staying is painful or confusing.

In our Advance Your BeCalm series of classes at BeCalmed Studio we talk about being in the present moment as a way to transform tension. How you are now in the present moment is who you will become. The future is made up of little and big present now-moments. So learning to transform tension right now is our jam.

It makes sense to me to deepen what I’ve been guiding by exploring the difference between a journey and a returning home. As always, I teach from my own experience. I’ve been exploring for myself how much of my reactions are to do with the past or a distracted mind.

Practices that lead you to calm make you aware of where tension is in the body and how many layers to that there are. A muscle may not be just a muscle - it may also be a response from the past. The path to transforming tension and therefore behaviour is to find a lovely kind of ease, no matter what is going on.

Accepting all that I have been so I can be all that I am.

Returning home to yourself first means accepting where you are right now, instead of trying something else new. There are millions of reasons not to start: don’t have time, money, responsible for too many things, not strong or well enough. It can also be an uncomfortable way to spend your time! Frustration half way through a restorative yoga shape is not because the shape is dumb or not right. The frustration can be because in restorative and yin yoga we stop long enough for other things to arise . We may recall a felt sense of not feeling safe. For me there’s a deep-seated sense that I don’t deserve to feel ease and free enough to be great. If I fidget or leave the pose early, I miss the opportunity to breathe into that experience and see it for what it is (and was).

Using the approach of observation I can view the experience differently. My breath softens it, lets it move, dissolve, pass on. Things come up to go. Often this kind of transformation happens without me doing a thing, especially after MindRest (Yoga Nidra) meditation. Peace arises from space not tension.

We face ourselves right now with a new found sense of care for ourselves - our gurgling stomach, tight neck, feeling of irritation, the things we tell ourselves, feeling shitty. The experience first arises as something we are familiar with. Then comes the opportunity for change, or at least to just feel good.

First we observe the sensation or energy in the place that calls our attention. Then we focus on our breath. We send breath to our place of attention and create space. We focus on release of the outbreath. Sometimes the experience shifts, morphs, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes a new thought will pop in a few days later.

There’s a shift.

If we don’t face ourselves as we are right now we may end up vacuum packing certain life experiences. We might shove them into storage and go on a journey somewhere else. We are this for a reason. But all that hard, stunning and painful stuff we put in storage - the tight muscle, lack of energy - it’s not going to change by locking it up. And who we are now is who we will become. Of course if we have complex PTSD or trauma, we may need more support than restorative yoga. Yoga can be a complimentary therapy in this way.

I’ve recently worked with a senior manager who is experiencing vertigo. She’s worked with doctors on the medical explanations like inner-ear imbalance. But from a yoga perspective it could be that her nervous system is out of balance from living a full life. Most people have some kind of imbalance especially if their new normal is chronic stress. Imbalance is fine as long as we know how to balance it! it’s created a new normal of chronic stress. We are doing a balancing breath together which involves breathing through alternate nostrils. It’s a mechanical experience that balances the two sides of the brain but it’s also about slowing down enough to see what presents itself.

Another teaching from Amrit Desai: “If you are in conflict with our symptoms, you cannot solve them”. I’ll add, “cannot solve them just with a medical approach.”

Another person I support had sudden heart surgery and is now experiencing ongoing and varied complications. It’s like her body just screamed, “That’s enough!” We’re working to hold both - the life-threatening disorder and the experience of being well. If her body and mind are constantly paralysed from danger then her body won’t be able to do what it does best - heal itself.

She is recognising that the life events and personality traits that got her here in the first place are not the ones to transform her experience of life, starting with her health. It’s really, really hard for her to do this work. I’m surprised she can even get out of bed some days. But she’s moving slowly and thoughtfully with care. She’s shifting everything she thought about herself and the world, one shape and breath at a time.

Restorative Yoga is a way to drop down into our bodies and to feel something other than our over-achieving mind.

In yoga we talk a lot about energy. It can be allusive at times. I think it’s just a way to go inward and release the grip our mind can have on us. On another level, energy is the feeling that something is going on inside our body. Heat, tingling, gut feeling, tension, something else. It’s like deep listening. Restorative yoga is the recognition that we are more than our mind and body. We are all the other subtle things going on.

Everything we think, see, feel and do effects our energy. I was talking to someone in the weekend about music festivals. He was going to one over New Year which meant three days of pumping, base music for 24 hours a day. It will be extremely fun but I wonder what happens if you don’t realise the affect that all that stimulus has on your body. And if you don’t realise this effect, then how do you know how to balance it? Pumping music, no down-time, alcohol and drugs all have a combining effect on our body’s internal (how we feel) and external (how we make others feel) energy, largely controlled by the nervous system. It also takes us away from the self that has been reacting and triggering for some time.

An aside… I studied Pacific climate change adaptation as my Master’s degree. I read this beautiful piece of research from a small village in Papua New Guinea. An international charity came into the village to tell people how to eat better (I mean, really). The first thing they did was sweep up all the rotting papaya and leaves that had fallen on the ground because they said this was leaving unhealthy bacteria. But that rotting material was fertiliser for the next crops of papaya. So those next crops were more susceptible to disease. Someone coming in and telling them what to do, dismissing their indigenous knowledge, worked for no- one.

Locals were blamed for the failure of that project. Locals said, “If people don’t know what’s important to us, how can they do what’s best for us”. It’s the same with our bodies. If we don’t know what’s going on inside, how can we know what to aim for on the outside? If only they’d started with what was really going on right in front of them.

Everything we see, think, feel and do has a response or a reaction in our body.

Sun on our skin. Food in our bellies. Being yelled at. Recalling a painful scenario again and again. Our subconscious guiding us to pull out of something because we’ve failed at something similar in the past. Telling ourselves, “I’m so stressed and there’s no way out of it” over and over. Energy is subtle. Our body hears everything we tell it.

Energy that does not create ease in the body builds up and creates blockages and sensitivities. Our cells change. They have to. They are influenced by our diet, our thoughts, exercise, emotions, trauma. If someone slams a door in your face, the door may not touch you, but you’re going to get a fright. Your heart rate will go up and your nervous system will go into fight or flight, releasing cortisol. It has to. Your limbic system’s job is to keep you safe so when it senses something is dangerous it triggers your nervous system and hormones to react. People who are highly empathetic just cannot watch horror movies or go on Roller Coaster rides. It makes us feel like shit.

The same, of course, goes with influences that calm us like calming music or doing a restorative yoga shape - your limbic system thinks all is well and it curates the relaxation response: your heart rate lowers and chemical goodies like serotonin are released in your body. Of course we can’t live in Relaxed Land all the time. Our bodies are designed to swing from stress to relaxation. It’s finding a balance and dealing with trapped tension that’s a key.

Excess stress shows us as excess tension in the body. It’s gotta go somewhere.

So, if your tight neck may not just be because your neck is tight. It may be because of how you hold yourself when you are threatened or stressed, ongoing. And your gut - well, that’s a whole blog on its own. I used to have irritable bowel syndrome which included shocking cramps and vomiting. Now that I’m less stressed and more aligned with who I really am, my irritable bowel is about 80% less.

I continue to face myself and often feel this beautiful sense of care for the pain I feel. But only because of regular meditation or other practices of yoga. It’s quite incredible how I can flip back to negative thought, doom and pain, when I don’t practice regularly.

Beyond stress release is this feeling of meeting yourself where you are, warts and all.

The pain of childhood, loosing someone, feeling oppressed, intergenerational trauma - it can sit in your body like a dormant firecracker. When lit, it explodes in all sorts of ways and wreaks havoc.

The potential for yoga (meditation and breathwork as well as the physical asana movements of yoga) to transform your life is more like a slow returning home than a journey to somewhere else. I’ve been taught that we have everything inside us already, we don’t need to go looking for it somewhere else or wait for it to emerge on its own. And for some, it can happen quite quickly. For others (like me) it took decades. But I always knew I had the potential.

We are already it - already whole. We just have a bit of nurturing housework to do!

I can’t explain how to do it except from my own experience. The more time I rest in stillness and silence and accept what presents itself, the more I am able to resolve my body’s quirks and experiences, the more I’m able to experience something other than anxiety, pain and stress. This includes the feeling of unhappiness even when life looks exceptional. I know when it’s working because I feel this effortless ease - this calmer energy - and I can trust in how I feel and what I do. It always amazing what opportunities arise from this space.

Return home.

MindRest (Yoga Nidra) for healing

This free track is yours. It is from my teachings with Kamini Desai and the I AM Yoga Nidra method with the Amrit Institute. I’ve had people who do it as soon as they feel they are getting sick, every day, for at least five days. And also people who use it when they are well, as a way for the body to do what they do best - heal itself.

This lying down, guided meditation will help you release tension in your body, and your mind. Have a blanket to put over you, lay on something comfortable with a bolster or pillow under your knees (to support your lower back). An eye pillow is lovely to use too. Turn off your phone and allow yourself to let go.

If you have PTSD or complex anxiety, please consult your meditation practitioner before you practice Yoga Nidra.

Join BeCalmed Studio’s MindRest classes on Tuesday nights, 6.30pm. In forest-studio or online.

How to keep calm

Once you’ve had the serene, authentic experience from calm practices, your body wants more. Here are some tips on how to keep the calm going. Imagine if you could be calm, anywhere, anytime…

It’s important to remember that calm comes about from the absence of both physical and mental tension.

We can let physical tension go through restorative or yin poses. Muscles release what we are holding. The nervous system switches to rest and digest through these poses, especially if you practice calming breathing techniques. This paves the way to release mental tension. - we feel safe and able to let go. Calm the body to calm the mind.

However, doing restorative poses with an anxious mind may not be enough. The same can be said for just meditation. If there is oodles of tension in the body, then the mind may be too distracted to let go. Your nervous may receive conflicted signals. So doing guided meditations, especially MindRest (Yoga Nidra) will send you to that serene, mental tension-free place. You go back to your life off the mat, having made a lovely imprint of calm.

For those who have done the BeCalmed Yourself 5-week series you already have some practices to do regularly. But your mind may kick and scream and give you lots of reasons to not practice: Your mind is not always right. It doesn’t like change and it doesn’t like to let go of control. We are more than our mind and what we do. Trust the subtler layers of yourself and your ability to feel how you want to feel more often.

Relaxation can only happen in the now

Our mind is tricky - it prefers to skip over the experience of letting go and being calm in the moment. It prefers to jump again to a time in the future when we are living the life we want. We put off the one and only place where your nervous system could reset and return to the rest it so desperately needs.

So here are some tips to keep you practicing:

Keep connected

Of course my favourite is going to be to keep connected with me at BeCalmed Studio! Here are some ways to do that.

Do something every day

Especially around the same time each day. Make practicing calm like brushing your teeth. Over time, it will transform your natural state of being. It will also allow your body to yearn for this calmer state.

Practice calm when you’re feeling good

As well as not so good. Think of it has creating a calm background for all that arises in your life.

Create a permanent calm place

Place a yoga mat, or a favourite cushion and a candle or something else you love, somewhere at home. It’s important that you don’t walk past and scowl at your mat, feeling bad, if you can’t make it there. Replace this with something like, “I rest in calmness”. It doesn’t need to be a whole yoga room. You could see it as metaphorical, and in the middle of a busy room, if that’s all that is available. My favourite poet, Apirana Taylor, said he wrote some of his best work in the middle of a drunken party! That’s what his life was at that time. Let your yearning for calm create the change you need.

Watch any new habits

Many habits and addictions begin when we are under stress. If you’ve had a major event, it’s okay of course to indulge and do things as a reaction, but be careful that they don’t turn into behaviors. The more we do something, the more it becomes habit. When I first started leading Yoga Nidra sessions, I gave up my drinking habits at the same time. At the end of a session, this thought would pop into my head… what drink will I have after the session? It took months to let that go. I gave the thought no energy what so ever. Kamini Desai says to enjoy habits in moderation, and have enough serotonin in your system to let you know when enough is enough. If you’re depressed or other serious conditions, you may need more than relaxation. Of course if you have addictions, PTSD or unresolved trauma, you may need other kinds of emotional support, like a counsellor, to walk alongside you.

Create your own calm practice sequence

It takes 15 minutes for your nervous system to reset. Of course the longer the better. Remember to include something physical (restorative or yin yoga pose/s), breath techniques, and a meditation or MindRest (Yoga Nidra). Some ideas for a calm practice:

• Use the restorative morning practice video in your Member resources (if you’ve done the BeCalm Yourself series - hint, hint)

• Even if you’ve only got one minute, sit in your calm place. Place your hand on your chest, close your eyes, bring a slight smile to your lips. Feel that as a sensation.

• Listen to my BeCalmed breath track. If you’ve done the BeCalm Yourself series, you have lots of other breath tools to use.

• Do a restorative yoga pose (like supported twist or supported child, or legs up the wall.)

• Listen to a MindRest (Yoga Nidra) track. Here is one from the I AM Yoga Nidra method, focused on letting your body heal itself. The intention setting in Yoga Nidra is incredibly powerful for reprogramming your mind and releasing old habits. The deeper our habits become, the field of choices we have narrows. If you tell yourself, “This is just who I am”, then that will be so. There’s a little truth that’s hard to hear: Our mind only has the power we give it. And your body hears everything your mind says!

These practices are powerful. Buddhists practice the three jewels to stay on their path: The Buddha (having a teacher), the Dharma (the practices), and Sangha (community). Meet others with like minds to support your path. BeCalmed Studio runs full day retreats too, a lovely way to connect with others.

And let me know how you are. If you can’t afford to come to a class, don’t let that stop you. We’ll work something out.

Why is yoga obsessed with breathing?

Listen to this podcast and find out how our breath is so linked with our nervous system. I’ll talk about the different ways in which our breath is triggered by how we feel, and the other way around.

In love with no-thing

Sound of water trickling from different places. Down the small yellow pipe that connects the middle-paved steps to the stone area in our back yard. Can we hear it falling from branches to leaves, to the ground, as well? Rain tapping the roof, falling into the sump drain from the waterlogged grass. It’s not just sound. It’s also slowing down and listening. Choosing our focus.

We are sitting in our new spa. It’s been three months since we bought it, and the novelty hasn’t worn. Water gathering on a leaf. Southerly winds above, a different direction than half an hour ago.

Birds now: Tūī. Kereru. Little green things, smaller than a sparrow – we keep meaning to look it up in a bird book. Frolic. Eat. Scratch. Rush. Fight. Swooooosh.

In the ocean this morning I said I’d like to know more about the seagulls and other birds that were circulating above us. What would you like to know, my friend asks? I’d like to know why they are circulating above us, so close to the water when there are three humans here – no fish. She asks, are you trying to ask what does it mean? Yes, that’s the question but I don’t really need to know why. I look up at the birds circulating, feeling the ocean.

Here now, listening to water falling and birds birding, Letting the search for meaning dissolve. It’s a tender space. It’s an empty space that is easily filled with worry if I let it.  I fill it with gratitude and appreciation for being able to be still and listen. For having the time and not needing to rush off to an insane job.

Sound is just one sensation. I can feel the water of the spa over my skin. I can smell chlorine. I see two small black birds land on the gutter above us, making their nest in the ceiling space. I wonder if that’s good for them though. More sheltered to nurture their babies sure. But do the babies learn to be resilient and sway with the strong winds and drench in the harsh rain? Thinking. Worry.

Taste too. Salt water from the swim this morning. Toothpaste. Metal something, maybe from my tongue.

Thoughts bombard and I don’t them take hold because they are trying to dictate how I am going to be in the world. They are based on fear and mistrust in my ability to be me and connect with the world in a calmer, wider way. I treat them just like one more sensation. Listening, smelling, seeing, feeling. Thinking. Dear thoughts – thank you for keeping me safe but I give you no more power than sound. I don’t prefer you over experiencing birds growing babies, water falling from the sky, trees growing green leaves, rocks breaking down. This I love today. Right now, I feel love for the way water sounds.

Yoga Nidra teacher Kamini Desai talks about an aspect of self and love as unconditional receptivity. We are like the wide blue sky which, by its nature, simply receives whatever is in it. The sky has no conditions. I sit here in the nature of my backyard, and I have no preference for what I am experiencing. The ‘I am’ of what I experience (and have thoughts about) doesn’t exist. I’m wider and more open than myself.

We often sit in the spa at unlikely times. On Saturday night there was a 130-kilometer storm. We sat in the spa with lightening flashing around us and thunder booming through the streets of Titahi Bay.  Sunny or thunder. Sunrise or sunset. Anxious or calm.

So, love as unconditional receiving, no matter where we are. I can simply be like the sky – like nature – and receive whatever is present without fear or judgement, or division. Spa pool, driving to work, waiting in a queue, dropping a messy spoon on the floor, anger, seeing a sunrise. If we don’t prefer one over the other, we can accept everything. If we accept everything, we won’t be disappointed in ourselves or others so much. We won’t create patterns of retreating or attacking because we aren’t the thing in front of us.

In meditation we have the ability to rest in the unconditional receiving of love. We deeply rest in peaks of silence and stillness because we get to experience not being affected by anything. We rest back as the sky and watch the contents come and go. Thoughts come up but we treat them the same as sensations in our feet, or the feel of our breath. Or nothing. And gradually, thoughts give up screaming for attention and they too dissolve. For me, it took years to feel this. Some people merge straight into it. I have glimpses only and I need consistently practice.

These restful glimpses of no-thing imprint on me like the ocean covers the sea floor.

Slowly my background is changing from anxiety to calm.

Silence is only silence because there is no sound. Would we notice the silence if we didn’t first notice the sounds? Silence happens and then sounds come in. If we feel the silence more than we feel the irritation of what someone says, then we don’t create a series of ugly or painful actions. And imagine being in love with nothing! Imagine love as accepting everything because we are more than what’s in front of us, including our thoughts.

“Even in deepest despair, isolation, and most profound loneliness - it’s all happening in the backdrop of love. The backdrop of silence and stillness is not easy to notice. We take it for granted and our tendency is to notice the contents only. The truth is, you are the abiding space that sadness moves through. You are the limitless self. We need to notice we are the backdrop, the container, this eternal presence that sadness is moving through. It only appears that we are the sadness. This is the cause of suffering. We have forgotten our true limitless nature. We have come to identify with whatever happens to be in the container or passing through the sky. Yoga Nidra allows us to rest as the container.” Kamini Desai. Yoga Nidra Teacher Training notes August 2024, inspired from her book Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep.

Calm the *uck down with BeCalmed: Mind Rest

It’s official - we have renamed our Yoga Nidra classes to BeCalmed: Mind Rest. It’s still the same beautiful practice, using the I AM Yoga Nidra Amrit method, just a different name. We think this will make this beautiful meditation practice more accessible for people, especially those who wouldn’t normally go to a ‘yoga’ class.

What is BeCalmed: Mind Rest?

There is nothing wrong with you. You’ve just got caught up in stupid-busy. Even when you’re doing something you love, you still feel uneasy. You don’t often feel good.

It’s not you, it’s your mind. Letting your mind rest back retrains the brain to not get so obsessed with the small stuff. It’s not rocket science. It’s a scientifically, ancient practice that creates more space and calm in your life. Buddha wasn’t wrong was he!

BeCalmed: Mind Rest allows your body to relax and your mind to calm. Through regular practice of calming your mind, you learn to balance stress and emotions better. This is the same practice as Yoga Nidra - just a different name.

If you want to be in a calmer state, BE in a calmer state.

BeCalmed: Mind Rest is a super easy, no experience necessary, lying down guided meditation for the mind. By relaxing the body and disengaging from your thoughts for 30-40 minutes, you will steal energy from your over-achieving mind and begin to find more ease. 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra has been scientifically proven to be as restorative as three hours sleep.

September is BeCalmed Mind Rest month.

Come for free: one 45-minute online class in September so you can see what a profound effect this practice can have on your mind and body. Do this for yourself and for the people you love or want to love.

Calm the *ck down. BeCalmed: Mind Rest online event, Tuesdays in September, 6.30pm. First class free. Or it’s just $15 per online class. $25 forest-studio class in Titahi Bay, Porirua.

BOOK NOW: https://becalmedstudio.as.me/mindrest
Use the Coupon BECALMED1 for your free class.
You will be sent a Zoom link after you've booked.

More info on what this practice is.

Choosing your focus

Years ago, I saw this very graphic old film footage of a dead body. It was in an autopsy scene. They had taken a slide of a dead body down the middle, width wise, to reveal all the different layers that we are: Skin, fat, soft tissue, muscle, bone, organs. I remember thinking how fascinating it was that in any one slice of our human body that there are all these different things going on that makes up a body.

Imagine what else is going on when we are alive. We are skin, fat, thoughts, muscles, nerves, cells, dying, dreams, blood circulating, memory, organs pumping and filtering, pain, growing, digesting, breaking down, inflaming, crying, smiling. So much happening at exactly the same second. We usually are not aware of anything other than the thoughts that drive us. We think we are our mind, or our outward facing physical body.

If it is the case that we all these other things happening at the same time, then why do we focus on our thoughts so much? We let our thoughts, especially when we are in reaction, rule everything we do. Our thoughts (and our body’s stress or relaxation response that follows) go into over-achievement and we feel powerless to be any different.

Our mind’s sole job is to keep us safe. When we are stressed, anxious or depressed, we signal to our body via our mind that things are not well. Our nervous system (which is the holy grail of all things) plunges deep and hard into a stress response. Our heart rate goes up along with our blood pressure, our digestion slows and clogs or speeds up and stops absorbing the good stuff we eat. The mental stress we feel effects all those other subtler layers of ourselves - nervous system, the slices of muscle, feelings, organs, emotions, growth of disease-causing cells. We are letting our mind rule our everything. We are what we think. We often only identify with the catastrophe we believe is going to happen to us or has happened to us.

We need to disengage with our thoughts. Practices that help us do this, like meditation, support us to create a different relationship with life as it unfolds because for small moments we are more than our thoughts. Controlling life’s events is bonkers - we can only create our relationship to events, not the events themselves. The only way to do this is get off the mind train and into the body.

Remember what it’s like to float in the ocean? We so deeply merge into sensation. The water, sun, weightlessness. This relaxed, intentional body shape makes us breath different, into our bellies. We have a slight smile on our lips which signals to our nervous system to welcome in the relaxation response (heart calms, digestion improves, immunity boosts, dopamine hormones released). These signals switch the mind from thinking and doing, to feeling and being. Stressed time stops.

At the same second that we are identify with only our thoughts we are also a whole bunch of other sensations and happenings. Our muscles are loosening or tightening. Our breath is shallow or deep. The sun is resting on our face. Thoughts are only one sensation present at any given time. We can choose a different focus other than our thoughts. We can choose to float in the ocean and feel.

Our society mostly privileges and focuses on drivers of profit or consumerism, and mind-based success. We shove other perspectives and experiences aside. A yoga-inspired life is the opposite. It’s about letting the mind go and focusing on other sensations in the body - focusing on all the other processes and feelings that are going on. We widen our language for living to include feeling all sensations, without judgement. They are there because of who you have been. Who you will be next, is because of how you are right now.

Some meditations are about dropping down into your body and feeling these sensations. These can include feeling non-mental sensations like tightness or lightness. Hot or cold. Tingling. Electricness (I don’t think that’s a word but that’s sometimes how I feel when I imagine nerves firing through my body.) Close your eyes now and non-mentally see if you can feel something going on in your body. A texture. A swirl. A tingle. A color. An awareness of a particular organ. Trust what you feel because it could be your body showing up.

There’s a saying Yoga - where attention goes, energy flows. What you focus on, expands it. If you focus on the release of muscles in the back of neck, your muscles will relax. If you focus on the time you where angered at something someone said, you’ll relive that feeling of anger in your body and it will cause damage. You are not only what you think, but you are also what you place your attention on.

So if all that is the case, and if we can slow down enough and do practices like meditation or restorative yoga to be more non-mentally present in our bodies, then don’t we then also have the ability to replace icky stuff with something more positive, or hopeful or helpful or fun ? We can recall the sensation of floating in the ocean, or sitting in the sun, or cuddling your cat. Sensations of joy rather than dread. Love rather frustration. Sharing a sadness. Sure, when we are reacting to something or being triggered, it’s dam hard to choose something more lovely. One of my teachers, Kamini Desai, says “We are allowed our first reaction”. But then we can learn from the experience by slowing down and noticing how we feel in our bodies. We can then learn to transform the ick.

We have a new spa pool. I’ve resisted it for most of my adult life because of cost and environmental reasons. But stuff it, we got one. Most mornings at sun rise, after my cold ocean plunge, my partner and I sit in our spa. We immerse ourselves in how the world wakes up. We see the birds migrate from Mana Island over our forest to wherever they are going. If we talk about anything tense, or the past, or worrying about the future, we try to stop ourselves. We want to focus on our connection with nature and each other: The migratory patterns of birds; Tui that dart up our driveway and dive into the forest; the way the light falls; how we feel; response to a smile. It’s a choice. It takes practice. It takes constant reframing and refocusing on how we want to feel and who we want to become. It’s harder to do when there’s trauma in our lives or our family, or down our street. But we must try so we can be of better use. We can be both and choose.

All this relies on restorative and meditative practice so you can feel other sensations that thought. We can be driven by so much more. We can not only choose what we focus on and feel in our bodies at any time, but we can proactively place intentions in the space we create by slowing down. Our bodies hear everything we do and say. Choose.

Try this. The next time you find yourself in reaction, choose something else. Sit down, go for a walk, close your eyes. Focus on something else. The birds flying above. The sound of your breath. Feel what expands when you breathe in and what releases when you breathe out. Imagine blood flowing freely through your body. Feel all the teeny nerves and muscles in the back of your neck relax. Feel the difference. That’s yoga. Forget the foot behind the head stuff. That’s only for intense yogis and not ordinary people. The physical posture side of yoga is only one of the eight limbs of yoga. They all lead to this: experiencing resting in silence and stillness from which everything arises. And it’s a lifetime of beautiful, slow, immersive and insightful practice, one change of focus at a time.

The BeCalmed Breath

Our breath is so blimmin’ amazing. It shows us how we feel and can give us the gift of calm no matter how shitty you feel. It is the only automatic system in our body that we can control, to make us calmer. Be calm now with this short BeCalmed Breath. Focusing on your breath steals attention away from your busy mind. And it’s free!

Want more free stuff? Let me know how much time you’ve got each day to breathe better, and I’ll send you more resources.

Your Calm Transition to Sleep

Listen to these words and find out how to improve your sleep. Transition to the most fundamental aspects of your health and wellbeing - your sleep. I know this works because I’ve created it from my own experience. #bettersleep

Globe Artichoke Yoga bolsters

Since everyone asks where I get my stunning yoga bolsters from…

Globe Artichoke

Aotearoa owned and made in Paekakariki. You can take some of the wool stuffing out for a softer comfort.

Or if you’re on a tight budget, K Mart has these ones. You can always look out for rectangular shaped cushions at op shops too. But really, investing in an awesome bolster that you love the look of and feel awesome on will help you practice. Think of it has your little bundle of calm. Have it visible. Love it!

Transforming trauma with a cat

Slash was dumped on a farm and spent a cold winter there. I chose him as my first SPCA foster cat because I didn’t want to get too attached. I wanted to end up fostering kittens eventually. So I moved my office into the spare room and created a cute little cat room. I had no idea at that time that he would be my first and last foster cat - and that I’d learn so much about what it takes to let trauma pass through.

Slash is male, aged about 12. He was so timid that I never thought he’d ever develop any kind of attachment to me, or me to him. He was called Slash because he has this Zoro type white slash across his mainly black face. I found that name quite harsh - almost setting him up to fail - so, we renamed him Goatee (cute white chin) Gary (name of his rescuer).

Goatee Gary spent the first five days under the bottom shelf of the bookcase, crammed into the corner, in the dark. He slept on the cold wooden floor and not the three-tiered fluffy, warm blankets I’d put there for him. He ate alone. For days I used trails of ham to get him to come out. After four days he slinked out, staying low to the ground. He’d work himself up to grab some ham from my thigh and then run back under the bookcase.

Goatee Gary’s nervous system was set on permanent extreme alert. This had become his norm and every aspect of his behaviour came from that place. Even when he was sleeping: I’d sneak a look in sometimes and see him snoozing, with both ears back. The slightest sound and he’d tense every muscle and cell in his body, ready to fight or flee.  Stress causes our nervous system to switch into fight or flight. Our heart rate increases. Our body produces extra cortisol and adrenalin - hormones that create extreme imbalances in our bodies if delivered for longer than their original design of short, sharp bursts for survival. If we live in even a moderate version of fight or flight, it can lead to disease.

One day I got a call from the SPCA to say that they found a heart condition on an x-ray. They didn’t think it was fair to put him up for adoption, unless I adopted him as his fosterer. It wasn’t an easy decision. I wanted to foster kittens and my partner was allergic to him. So I booked him in to be euthanised. On the day, I put him in his cage and packed up all his little toys. I’d just started spraying cat nip on this little yellow toy mouse and he loved it. It was soggy from him licking it and nuzzling it. I picked it up to put it in the cage with him. Up until that point I couldn’t look at Goatee Gary, but I caught the look on this face and broke down crying. I couldn’t do it. Goatee Gary - you’re stuck with me. I couldn’t bare to see all that progress dissolve in an instant. I was also totally in love with him.

Every day I would tell him how well he was doing and how amazing he was. I’d sit with him for hours. Gradually he would come out on his own and eat his cat biscuits in front of me, looking around all the time. His eating was frenzied as if it’s all he’d ever get. I was slow and quiet, matching his fearful energy with patient, loving energy.

One day, he walked out of the cat room and into the lounge. He nestled himself in the crook of my arm while I was lying on the couch. He looked away as if it was the most natural thing to be doing. Then my partner walked in from the bedroom (Goatee Gary hates moving legs, especially a man’s) and he bolted back to under the bookcase for the day.

The next day he tried again. This time he spent about an hour first slinking around the lounge, keeping low. He jumped up on my stomach and started head butting my face. Then came the V8 motor purring! This became his nightly routine. It was odd bonding as he shoved his head in my face.

I trust that we came into each other’s life at the perfect time. We lost our dog last year and I’m not ready to get another dog. I also know profound sadness and loss from other experiences of life. I know how trauma and grief can stick and harden inside your body. Being gentle can feel impossible because it means opening up and feeling what’s inside. Having a nervous system that can only scream is paralysing. We turn to all sorts of things to cover up. It takes something different to make a shift.

Goatee began to relax through trust over his surroundings. He was in a different physical space. Then he found warmth, soft things to lie on, sun to bask in so he could stretch out his body. His moments of deep relaxation grew.

Trauma sits within us until we can slowly trust and bring ourselves into a different shape. Many of the people who come through my studio are so incredibly brave. They go through the BeCalm Yourself 5-week series because a one-off doesn’t transform. They arrive with a past that they are ready to breathe with. We can’t change what has happened to us but we can change our relationship to life, from the inside out, one breath (or head-but!) at a time.

Goatee’s latest change is to sleep on the bed, on the very corner, not taking up too much space (yet). He doesn’t try to wake me up. Sometimes I wake up anyway to check on him and he’s sitting up staring at me. Safe. Settled. Grateful. Both of us.

This was the first time Goatee Gary came out from under the bookcase.

Give your mind a break with active relaxation

We have so many layers to us. Yet we focus usually just on shaping our lives with our mind. And we have a limited view of mind: we see mind as this overall word for everything that happens to us. But our mind is based on our past, and isn’t always right!

Our layers of bodies and experiences get kindly uncovered when you engage in any kind of yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice. Some of the things you’ve told yourself, felt, or wanted are revealed to you. It sounds challenging, and it is hard at times. But it’s also gloriously easy because there’s a relief you feel when you realise that you don’t need to cover up anymore—that you don’t need to wait another decade to feel more content in life. You’re already the real you; you’ve just gotten a bit cluttered along the way.

At some point in any yoga pose, there’s a moment when you realise you’re thinking. It’s like you get the opportunity to peek at the ‘why.’ This awareness allows you to let go of everything. You stop searching for control, and you can breathe deeper and sink further into the pose. Your breath can guide this process too—relax the body to relax the mind. You start using your intelligence instead of just your intellect. It’s like going on holiday and spending a day preparing, a day travelling, and then you arrive at the edge of the lake and you make a massive sigh out. You’ve arrived in the moment.

In a yoga pose, you may realise you’ve been brooding over something that happened during the day that hurt, or something that suddenly appears extremely urgent on your unchecked to-do list. Perhaps images of past relationships will show up. It’s all good. Your clever mind is trying to support you; it’s just a bit of an overachiever!

It’s like your mind is going through a deep-soak cycle instead of a rinse cycle.

Alternating between feeling sensations in the body, anxious thoughts, inspiring ideas, or sounds and smells is very normal. In fact, if you can relax with that and let those things just pass by, rather than telling yourself you shouldn’t be feeling or thinking that, then you move to another state.

Your intellect’s (mind) sole job is to keep you safe. Through your limbic system, it looks for signals to determine if all is well. If it perceives a threat, it will act accordingly. It will scream for your attention. But there is so much more going on than this all-compassing view of mind. Yoga gives you change to focus on your other lowers: how breath affects your energy; giving space for wisdom and intuition to emerge; your ability to connect with nature and therefore outside yourself; and resting back into silence and stillness. This deep resting can be hard at first because we usually don’t have experience of doing no-thing. We often take pride in how busy we are because we feel value that way. We have to trust that this is the space of silence and stillness that will create our next moment. The present carries the future.

You may have heard yoga being called a practice. It’s called that for a reason: it takes time and evolves. Years ago, a meditation teacher told me that the most painful thing is to NOT be on your path. The only way to stay on your path is to keep walking on it.

The pathway to calm is to let your thoughts just hang out where they are.

By doing this, you will allow space to drop into your body and just rest. Of course, if you experience pain, you need to adjust. Stop striving. If you’re familiar with this pain or tension comes from, you can breathe into it and let it be there until it changes or adjust with kindness. A sweet stretch in the body is good; pain is not.

If you experience PTSD or past trauma, then you may need different kinds of support around you. Yoga is excellent to support the healing in these conditions, but you need to feel safe enough to let go. I can work alongside other health practitioners who support you and bring a yoga perspective and practice to your healing. Please reach out.

Back to that moment in a pose where you realise you’re still totally in your head: You can use the in-breath to gather this tension (physical and mental) and then use the out-breath to release whatever you observe or are holding on to. Feel tension and distraction leave through your nostrils with your breath. Eventually, you’ll learn to instantly soften and the shape you’re in starts to feel a bit like falling in love. Effortless. Gentle. .

If not, you can fake it: make your out-breath longer than your in-breath. Visualise muscles and thoughts softening or disappearing. You’ll have your unique way of doing this. Trust.

Send signals to your body and mind that it is okay to let go.

I do hatha or vinyasa flow yoga with my lovely partner most mornings. I can feel when he lets his mind and body go in a pose—it’s about halfway through. Up until then, there’s a bit of huffing and puffing, agitation, striving and commentary. And I know he sneaks in some tummy crunches at the end when we are meant to be totally letting go! Even though I’ve been doing yoga and meditation on and off for three decades, I still find myself going back to the beginning sometimes. Letting go in the moment is the hardest thing to do but it is the single most beneficial thing we can do for our physical and mental health. The changes are slow, but there’s no going back once you’ve made a shift.

Try a class with me or find a yoga class in your neighbourhood. Starting with restorative yoga or yoga nidra is a gentle way to begin. Forget the word “yoga” if it you think you can’t do yoga. Yoga just means means union of mind and body - being in another state. Just think about active relaxation, bringing ease. We are all messy and challenged and have to start somewhere. We are all also filled with beautiful layers just waiting to catch a breath and deeply rest.

Most outstanding smoothie recipe

Some of you have been asking for my famous smoothie recipe. It’s really a excuse to eat fresh turmeric often. You can put anything you want in, especially the fruit. So here it is:

1 cup water

1/2 cup chopped fruit

2 teaspoon chopped fresh turmeric

1/3 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon or more of yoghurt (I use Greek, no sugar)

1 tablespoon oats

2 cm of grated, chopping fresh ginger

2 cm finely chopped lemongrass (optional)

1/4 lemon, pips and tough white bits out (keep skin)

Blend!

I use frozen blueberries and raspberries, and sometimes a bit of feijoa (OMG that’s incredible). And I get fresh turmeric from a proper vegetable shop. I peel it (or just chop the skin off finely) and pop them in the freezer. They don’t last very long in the fridge. You can add some ice as well if your water isn’t cold. I put the oats in to make it like oat milk but you could replace the water and oats with any milk. It’s a good way to raw oats into your gut though. This is a meal for me.

Enjoy!

Image: Cocado

Restorative Yoga: Your little wisdom party

We are constantly on the move. Sure, sleep is restorative, but if you do not get enough good quality sleep then you may be going about your days in a permanent stressed state. Without intervention, this can lead to chronic stress and living half a life.

Restorative yoga is about moving into supported shapes and allowing our bodies and our minds to radically chill out. This allows the other aspects of ourselves to have a chance to be heard. One of the quietest but most profound voices we usually ignore is our in-built wisdom to know and heal ourselves.

Our body hears what our mind thinks

Our physical body and our mental body are the same thing. One influences the other. They are also fueled by the same fuel - our breath. Change the breath and you’ll change how relaxed you feel and the quality of your thoughts.

My beautiful doggie passed away last year. We knew it was coming and we hoped we will know when the right time to send her to sleep was. One morning she just couldn’t get up. I knew in that split second that today was the day. Five seconds later I got a nose bleed. I hadn’t had one since my 20s. From that day on, I have had absolutely no doubt in the connection between our mind and our body.

There is another aspect of ourselves that is influencing us too: Our wisdom body.

This is where perception, intuition and ‘gut feeling’ lies. Our wisdom body knows what we ignore. It has the knowledge of everything we’ve been and want to be. Our wisdom body knows every pathway, electrical field and organ in our body - and it knows how to heal itself. But only if we relax our bodies and mind. Our wisdom body appears when it has the room to rise and boogie. It’s always dressed and ready but never gets invited to the party!

Restorative yoga allows your wisdom body to surface.

Certain relaxed shapes using supportive cushions, blocks and blankets means your body and mind can turn the music down. Restorative shapes allow your body to return to where it came from before your over-achieving mind grabbed all the fuel in your body. Relax your body to relax your mind.

When you do a supported Restorative Yoga pose you allow your body to release what it is holding and masking. Your overactive mind will get out of the way because you are giving it less and less attention. You use deep breathing to release muscles, nerves and pathways to organs and regulatory systems like digestion, immunity and the nervous system. Your nervous system will switch to rest and digest because your muscles releasing and your conscious breathing tells your brain that all is well. Again, this happens when we are sleeping too. But stress and anxiety greatly effects the quality and amount of sleep we get.

Your body cannot heal when it is stressed. It is biologically impossible.

The mind’s sole job is to keep us safe. For most of us, our mind is a total over-achiever. Our mind plays tricks on us to make sure we avoid pain and lean towards pleasure. It’s very black and white in that way. Wisdom lives in neither pleasure or pain. Wisdom lives in between. Your body’s ability to heal itself is activated when both physical and mental tension is released.

Even if you have major medical or physical conditions you will still get relief from physically and mentally letting go. Your body is not only copying with a new shape or state that has been forced on it, but it is struggling to accept where you are right now. You can find lovely moments of ease in yoga practices. It changes your relationship with pain, discomfort and a general feeling that there must be more to life. That’s because there is!

You’ll have a little wisdom party each time you take a restorative shape.

Every week I hear people say, “I need to relax more”. We all know what we need to do. We are being told by doctors, partners or colleagues. But using the same strategy (the mind) that got you here in the first place, is just bonkers.

Experience Restorative Yoga with me or on You Tube or at another studio. Most yoga studios do their own version. I do a mix of restorative, breath work and the incredible Yoga Nidra which accelerates your wisdom body’s potential to make you feel so much better.

My BeCalm Yourself 5-classes series explores profound rest and relaxation so your body can do it’s thing - restore and heal itself. The difference over five weeks is life changing for some.

The side of relaxation you may not know (yet)

You are probably familiar with how the stress response affects your body: Your nervous system goes into fight or flight and increases your heart rate; your immunity and hormone regulation is largely shut down; you crave more fat and carbs because the mind is telling the body it needs to eat these kinds of foods to survive; and your brain function gets microscopic and cannot cope with more than surviving.

You are also probably familiar with the relaxation response in your body: Your nervous system switches to rest and digest: your heart rate lowers and blood pressure decreases; your immune system is activated to fight off harmful bugs; hormones that are terrible for you in longer-term doses like cortisol are no longer produced; your clever scrummy hormones like melatonin (for sleep) and dopamine (for feelin’ good) increase and flood your body; your weight is balanced and you feel pretty good.

There is a side to relaxation that you may not know (yet). You’ll have an inkling of it because you’ve been there at times. You’ve had an awesome, relaxing holiday and come up with a creative idea for your life. Or you’ve been for a bush walk, listened to a meditation track, or been to a yoga class. How do those things come about and how can you get more of them so that you feel calmer more of the time?

When your body is relaxed your mind chills and you become calmer, creative and more positive.

When your mind receives signals from your physical body that everything is okay, your body relaxes. The uber energy spent on the stress response via the nervous system is no longer needed. This energy can now be redirected to all the other crucial functions in your body. You switch into this state by calming down enough for the brain to enter calmer brain wave states. Think of the luscious time before you drop into sleep - you’ve disconnected from your thoughts and your body is physically relaxed. You are about to enter dreaming. You can reach this state while you are awake through calming practices (more on that later), signaling to your mind that it is no longer needed to just keep you alive. It now has energy and focus to direct the body to heal and other yummy things.

You become calmer. Your mind’s sole job is to keep you safe. It is always looking for signals from the outside world so it knows whether to put you in a stress response or a relaxation response. That’s where most of your energy goes - into fueling your mind and body for this basic function. Many people live in chronic stress - there are no tigers in the room to run from, but your mind thinks there is. They are on the go, go go and feel mentally and emotionally overwhelmed, all of their waking life. Their sleep is effected. Their digestion is poor. If this sounds like you, take a breath, give yourself a hug and please read on.

When you enter a calmer brain wave state from being physically and mentally relaxed, you are more creative. You enter more of a non-doing space. There are more gaps between your thoughts. These gaps give space for your creativity to fire. When you enter deep relaxation, or a meditative state, you mind slows into Theta brainwave states. Kamini Desai mentions in her book Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep (my bible) that artists, inventors and children can often have more Theta brainwave activity, even when they are awake. I’m at my most creative when I’ve just started to relax. It’s a bit annoying sometimes - I always have to have a pen and paper near by!

You become more positive. I don’t mean fake happy, I mean something more ordinary and unwaivering (no matter what life throws at you): A deep, rich doubtless feeling that life is going to be okay and not have so many manic ups and painful downs. In Sharon Salzberg’s book Faith she talks about a concept called Bright Faith. I’ve taken this as accepting where you are right now, but also knowing that the beautiful view in front of you is not only somewhere you are not only heading to, but also that you feel the essence of this beautiful new place from where you are right now. Practicing Bright Faith can only be done when you are in the relaxation response - when your body and mind are calmer. You cannot heal and realise new things for yourself when you are stressed. Your mind does not and will not do it for you. It’s just trying to survive.

How do I know this?

I’m not a flash scientist or medical expert. But I have transformed myself from chronic stress, overwhelm and pre-disease to someone who has a new lease on life. I am into recovery from Long Covid, digestive issues and heart palpitations. I’m healthier, happier and I can’t wait for the rest of my life. A few years ago, I was just trying to survive and I felt like shite every day. I also know about these lesser known effects of the relaxation response because I do practices every day to get me there. I have also ditched my super-stressful career and retrained as a yoga teacher. My little studio, BeCalmed Studio, at the back of my house in native bush, is a restorative haven. Now it’s here for you. I don’t make much money but I live each day being able to share what has worked for me. I’m in love with the practices I teach as are nearly everyone who comes through the studio.

What practices will help you enter this super-relaxation state?

Restorative yoga, yin yoga, breath work, and Mother of all Good Things - Yoga Nidra. Our version of Yoga Nidra is called BeCalmed: Mind Rest. Our method is the I AM Yoga Nidra method, from my teacher, the wonderful Kamini Desai. She has passed on teachings from her father and his lineage of yoga wisdom.

These active relaxation practices are gentle and easy, and switch your body over into the relaxation response, guaranteed. You don’t really do much except relax your body and listen to me! You take shapes and breath that promote tension release. And you listen to a lying-down guided meditation, Yoga Nidra, to have a super release of mental tension. You enter a meditative state that is similar to that space between awake and asleep.

The yoga where you put your foot behind your head works for many people. So does the more restorative sides of yoga. They all end up in similar place though - relaxing the body to relax the mind.

So if you want to feel better and do life better - with a little more calm - don’t use the same strategy that go you here in the first place. Try something different. Get some calm in your life, right now.

How can you practice?

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - online via Zoom

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - forest-studio, Titahi Bay, Porirua

First class free - use coupon - becalmed1

Let me know what’s going on with you and we can choose the right class for you. Aroha nui ki a koe.

Or do these free things, right now

Try this restorative yoga pose, Legs up the Wall or listen to my short guided meditation to bring about calm. Or listen regularly to this short breathing track. You can also find me on InsightTimer.

It may not be a cold but a Needed Rest

I’m not a doctor or a naturopath or a scientist or anything flash. I’m a recovering Long-Covider and Ex-chronic-stresser who has proven time and time again that what is going on mentally for me, shows up in my body. This showing up can be by way of fatigue, body inflammation pain, heart palpitations, a cold, headaches and tinnitus, grumpiness, or just a feeling of needing to go within.

Our minds are super clever: Their sole job is to keep us safe. They do such a good job that even when there are no tigers in the room to run from, they trick us into thinking there is a tiger in the room. Rehashing the past and neurotically rehearsing the future - sound familiar? Practices like social media scrolling, on the go go go go, unhappy or super stressed at work - these are our modern tigers.

So we have to trick our mind and get down into our bodies, before our minds make us sick.

A practice like restorative yoga does just that by:

• Letting your mind do its crazy thing as you bow down under it, to deeply rest. Your mind will get the message to chill out.

• Lowering your heart rate and blood pressure

• Letting you focus on how you are breathing (your breath is a reflection of how you feel)

• Giving you a chance to do nothing

• Resting in the present moment where you can experience calm

• Switching your nervous system (which controls everything) over to relax and digest.

Because you are not running from tigers while you are in a restorative yoga pose, your body is shifting all its survival energy and focus over to digestion, balancing hormones, immune system and regulating your nervous system.

And restorative yoga has really cool names! Waterfall, face plant, dead bug, twisted root, child’s and my favourite - leg’s up the wall.

Your body cannot heal when you are stressed. Your mind is too busy keeping you safe. It can’t and won’t do both.

Your body needs rest. It can be incredibly hard to just drop everything and go to a restorative yoga class, or watch a video, or even do the pose yourself. But if you want to feel different, you must do something different. You can’t use the same strategy that got you here in the first place.

I know. I’ve run around in circles my entire life, having an awesome time, making an impact. But the biggest impact was on myself - not in a good way.

I’m not a flash expert. But I know what it takes for me to destress, avoid a cold or at least the worst of a cold, and bring a whole bunch of beautiful calm into my life: stopping, dropping into some restful shapes, breathing and being present.

Yoga Nidra is also an excellent way to bring physical and mental tension release to your body and mind. It’s an easy lying down meditation and is especially good if you are anxious, need to change the things you tell yourself, and suspect you may be chronically stressed.

Rest Yin  Restorative Yoga classes

BeCalm Yourself 5-week series

Yoga Nidra - online and in forest-studio

Free audio track to bring about some instant calm

Contact me so I can support you to find more calm and ease in your life. Most of the people who come through my studio usually run at the word yoga. They don’t think it’s for them. They just haven’t experienced the restful side of yoga. Yet.

Yoga Nidra: The In-between

Last night our Deep Relaxation: Yoga Nidra class focused on The In-Between. The space between the outbreath and the inbreath; the state between; the present moment.

We are practiced at rushing from A to B. If we were more practiced in its opposite, or rest, we could feel differently in this life.

What is an alternative between A and B? How does it feel?

You could stop reading right now for a minute, to explore. Relax your body. Take a deep breath in. Slowly let breathe out, fully. And rest in the beautiful pause.

What was that like? What’s your own version of In-between? A word. Image. Quality. Go there often.

Over time, this in-between space can be deliciously spacious. Gentle. An absence of tension.

Between loss and hope.

We can choose what we find in this space. Let the in-between resonate into your next inbreath, outbreath. Life.

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Deep Relaxation: Yoga Nidra. Every Tuesday 6.30pm-7.15pm. Forest-studio Titahi Bay or online via Zoom.

More about BeCalmed Studio’s Yoga Nidra here.

Book your forest-studio class.

Book your online class.

How can putting your legs up the wall be so amazing?

I used to open a bottle of wine to feel better. We tell ourselves that it relaxes us and makes us feel good. Well, it does on some levels - and it’s quite fun in moderation! But it increases your heart rate; weakens your immune system; and alters your brain to stop you feeling what you need to feel.

When I feel mentally stressed or out of sorts, mostly I put my legs up the wall, or over cushions on the couch. This is a restorative yoga pose - Viparita Karani - which brings about a wonderful feeling of calm, physically and mentally. If you don’t like the way you feel then try putting your legs up the wall. It’s free and always available. Just give it a go.

How does this pose work?

This pose is from the family of yoga inversion poses where your head is below or at roughly the same level as your heart. Your spine is elongated, allowing alignment to happen to release muscular and nerve tension; your chin is usually slightly tucked to send a message to your nervous system to calm down; and it takes some awkward effort to get into the pose so you’re more likely to stay awhile!

Effects of this beautiful, simple practice:

1. Instant calm by telling the nervous system it’s okay to chill out.

2. Alignment of the spine and release of spinal nerves.

3. More oxygen to the brain for more brain goodness.

4. Release of tension in the legs and feet.

5. Stimulates the lymphatic system which keeps fluids flowing in the body and also defends the body against infections.

6. Can help with digestion because your body shifts to rest and digest.

7. Brings about the relaxation response (lowers heart rate, encourages deep breaths, gives time to rest in a lovely pause).

Signs you may love the effects of restorative yoga pose Legs Up the Wall

1. You come home from work feeling frazzled, open a bottle of wine and turn the TV on. No pause. No reflection. No relief. Just one full-on state of mental tension to the next.

2. No matter how much physical exercise you do, you still feel mentally exhausted and uneasy.

3. You just can’t stay still: It’s boring and you don’t see the point. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

4. You know you need to lower your blood pressure or improve your immune function, but you don’t have the time or resources to begin an entirely new health approach right now. This pose won’t do everything, but it is a really great first step.

How to get into this pose

Getting there is not glamorous, but it is worth it:

1. Sit side on to the wall with your left hip against the wall and your knees bent with souls of feet on the floor.

2. Put your right hand to your right side on the floor and as you tip back to the left, try and get your left buttock slight up the wall.

3. Swivel your body to come down on your back as your legs go up the wall.

4. Have your arms above your head on the ground, to the side, or somewhere in between.

5. Try putting a bolster under the back of your hips if you’d like more elevation, but it’s not necessary.

6. Breathe slow and deep: Fill the abdomen first, then the chest; then on the outbreath; keep the abdomen extended and release air out from the chest as you breathe out. Lastly, completely empty air from the abdomen as those muscles gently fall to the spine.

7. Stay for at least 5 minutes. 10-15 is best, but anything creates a shift in how you feel.

8. When your mind wanders to what’s for dinner or rehashing an argument from the day, come back to your breath. Feel it come into your body. Pause. Feel it go out of your body. Again, and again. Keep it simple.

If you have heart issues or diagnosed hypertension, have major spine and neck issues, or are 3+ months pregnant, please talk to your medical practitioner before doing this pose. It’s okay to do this when you are menstruating but not if you have discomfort or conditions like endometriosis.

I’d love to know how you found this pose. Please contact me if that feels right.

Want more? Join my classes! Don’t wait another year to feel uncomfortable and disastisfied with where you are.